Bobby Cannavale

Gays have been very good to you, Bobby. Would you like to thank us by taking us out for a drink?
All of you? Oh, my God. Well, the thing about gay people is that they like to pick up the check more than straight people, so yes, of course.

Do you remember the first gay person you met growing up?
Well, you’re talking about the late ’70s in Jersey. I didn’t think I knew any gay people when I was a kid, but actually, there was this one person, the pianist in the church choir, and we all knew about his “friend.” But it wasn’t until I went to high school in Florida that the other guy that was in all the plays with me -- he was the first gay person I really knew. I’m positive that he was gay, but (a) he wasn’t out and (b) he hadn’t had any relationships yet. To me, he was just annoying, but I don’t know if it had anything to with being gay. [Laughs] Look, you’re either an asshole or you’re not an asshole. If you happen to be gay and an asshole, you’re still just an asshole.

Your TV career was launched after producer John Wells saw you play Steve in Paul Rudnick’s The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1998. What a gay way to get discovered!
Pretty much, yeah. It opens with me having anal sex with my lover -- Adam and Steve doin’ it. You want to hear a funny story? So it’s me and Alan Tudyk, who played Adam -- both of us not gay. We rehearse this play for 3 1/2 weeks, and we go three weeks before we even touch that opening scene. [Director] Chris Ashley and Paul decide we’re going to wait on that, so we skip over that every day in rehearsal. We finally get to it, and Chris says, “So how do you guys want to approach this?” And we’re like, “Let us just do our thing, and you tell us how it is.” So we get down there, we’re wearing jockstraps, laughing, doing the whole “This is weird!” thing. Then we start doing the lines and Chris stops us, and he and Paul are both laughing hysterically. We’re like, “What?” And Chris goes, “Well, the thing is, it’s not that painful!” Apparently the both of us had looks on our face like we were being tortured.

Did the sexual content make you hesitate in taking the role?
No, I read the play and laughed my ass off. That was just a story about two people who loved each other, so it wasn’t a big deal. I gotta be honest with you, my whole thing with acting is that I want to do things that I’ve never done before. It’s really my chance to educate myself and try to empathize with people who have different interests than I do. I didn’t go to college, so I do all that through my work. My first gay role was in [Larry Kramer’s] The Normal Heart at La MaMa about 13 years ago opposite an excellent openly gay actor, Tony Quinn, who introduced me to my first wife, actually, and became a really good friend. I played his dying lover, and there was never an issue there. That was a big break for me because Lanford Wilson, a great American playwright, was in the audience, he introduced me to Circle Rep, and that’s how I got into that theater company and met even more gay people!

When you play gay, do you feel a responsibility to represent the community respectfully?
I would normally say no because I don’t ever let my own politics inform the choices I make in terms of roles. But for gay characters, I have turned things down that were just offensive. Like, I don’t think [I Now Pronounce You] Chuck & Larry does a particularly good service to gay people. But I also don’t think it’s very funny. Something like Kiss Me, Guido I think is funny.